Emberus

The blind god

A flaming giant who walks through popped bubbles crushing villages, shouting 'Orthrus', unable, Elle thinks, to see into sealed ones, yet cooking the people inside anyway (ch. 28). His card: Sun and Ash God, level 250, invulnerable, a locked god no sponsor may buy this season; Taranis's youngest brother and half the sun duology with his twin Hellik; 'one of the most unhinged of all the pantheon'; his eyes plucked out in grief for his murdered favourite son (ch. 31) — Geyrun, by Orthrus's card and the quest (ch. 29, ch. 32). Samantha: her great-uncle and cousin, who once buried a country in lava because a drunk urinated on a torch.

Carl's god

On a death-spiralling biplane Carl chooses him over Grull in the god tab and throws the Skull Empire's Celestial Grenade; Emberus appears as a city-sized bleeding head, takes the plane in the nose, where it explodes, and says, 'Orthrus. There you are. I've been looking for you. I was so very worried' (ch. 31). The cost: a shrine in the saferoom, two sun tattoos, a daily drop of blood and a five-percent tithe, and two quests in his own gravelly voice — find who killed Geyrun, and kill Hellik before the twelfth floor, with a bonus if painfully (ch. 32). The benefit: a boon, a burn, and free access to Club Vanquisher, with an asterisk.

Carl's god passes through the realm for a minute and returns to the Halls of the Ascendency (ch. 10); a note on a knife says the Zockau guards now worship him so Carl cannot kill them (ch. 10). His first boon is a dud — fire damage for a man with no fire spells (ch. 24) — and his shrine's water is napalm to vampires (ch. 44). Carl kills one of his worshippers on a raid and is Shunned: a boon cancelled, penitence, doubled tithes (ch. 60). His voice delivers a quest update at the end: obtain the Memorial Crystal: Apito, and speak to his high cleric in Club Vanquisher (ch. 77).

'And what about your god? This Emberus' (ch. 6); Emberus-blessed holy grenades (ch. 10); as his worshipper Carl may enter Club Vanquisher, whose entrance is a temple (ch. 15); Ogun's esteem for him is what keeps Carl alive (ch. 16); Eileithyia calls him her good friend, and his messages taught Carl to copy a god's words before they vanish (ch. 17); a cleric of Hellik is hostile to his worshippers and worth a boon, though not in the club (ch. 18); a martyr's sacrament on the sun, and the Martyr's Path (ch. 18); Nekhebit's priestess to question (ch. 38); Devotee, a tithe of ten per cent (ch. 47); a loan through his church (ch. 56); Amayon's price for the truth about Geyrun (ch. 69).

His ring flashes Soul Poisoning at the floor's start (ch. 1); his quest asks for a High Cleric's permission to break a truce with the demons, and the Apito crystal (ch. 2). He shrieks with laughter for ten seconds when Mork dies (ch. 51), rages at Hellik's message and demands a hundred of his worshippers, then contemplates killing the other Sheol princes for the truth and warns that surviving Hellik will only turn his grief on Carl (ch. 57). 'Abandon your current task and obtain it' when the crystal shows itself (ch. 64); the crystal passes to Prepotente, who may give it to the Epicure (ch. 78). When Samantha confesses aloud he enters the realm: sixty-six minutes, 'Fly, martyr. Bring my enemy to me' (ch. 83, ch. 84). He holds her and cries at the volcano, then burns the floor (ch. 86, ch. 87). 'Grumpy ol' Emberus,' says Eris, who wants Carl to kill him (ch. 76).

Quemada's god as well as Carl's, who tasks his worshippers with killing his brother (ch. 35); Carl's smite waits at the end of the eleventh floor (ch. 67). Summoned human-sized into Club Scolopendra — bald, blazing sockets, a beard of smouldering cracks — he asks for proof of who killed his son and is told Khepri, then Carl himself (ch. 95). Held by Katia's bolt and a Danforth in his eyes, his incineration deflected into a pig, he rises world-melting and says 'Brother, no' as Taranis twists his wrist (ch. 96). 'A deity has fallen. The heavens tremble with rage.' His memorial crystal lies in the dirt (ch. 98).